Sleep Now
by temporalwitch
Summary: When Jack awakens from nightmares now, he knows he isn't alone. Fluffy. And a cussword.


**Sleep Now**

When Jack awakens from nightmares now, screaming hoarsely and drenched in sweat, sometimes sitting up in the bed and unseeing, there lives the certainty in the recesses of his mind that he's not alone anymore.

He knows Ianto doesn't always fully awaken anymore, so accustomed has he become to the nocturnal demons that pursue Jack relentlessly through the landscape of his dreams. Jack doesn't mind. He wished, sometimes, Ianto didn't have to witness them at all. They're horrific enough inside his own head, and Jack knows Ianto has his own dark specters that intrude in the night.

But Ianto does awaken, and he instinctively does the first thing that occurs to him. He reaches for Jack and pulls him close, wrapping warm, strong arms around him. Jack has learned to swallow his not-inconsiderable pride and not resist. He relaxes against Ianto and into the embrace, and, more often than not, tucks his head under Ianto's chin, the beginnings of morning-stubble scratching against his forehead. There, in the darkness of the bunker beneath his office or in Ianto's flat - the _where _ceased to matter long ago - Jack feels safe for a while. Ianto's body feels so solid and warm and perfect against his; Ianto's scent is comfort and his taste is serenity.

The tension drains out of Jack's body as Ianto's lips brush his temple, murmuring garbled nonsense in some strange English-and-Welsh hybrid tongue that soothes him anyway and draws him gently into that tiny, bright place he thinks might be happiness. Ianto's deep, sleep-graveled voice is the vessel that bears him across his own personal River Styx that bisects his soul. The vibrations of Ianto's throat and chest against Jack's skin evokes memories of the sea licking and crashing against the sandy peninsula of his childhood and the visceral joy of flying his first ship through the interstellar blackness and of the TARDIS humming beneath his hands splayed along her clean planes.

This complete and beautiful perfection won't last, and Jack is acutely, achingly aware of this. Nothing endures forever, except perhaps _him_, and he isn't completely sure about that either - forever is a long time, and experience has taught him that anything can happen. When his here-and-now is populated by Life-Knives and Risen Mittens and chocolate-obsessed pteranodons with Welsh names soaring over workstations and harassing medics (who die and live again but die in the end anyway) and orgasmic coffee and gorgeous Welshmen in impeccable suits who handles a gun like he was born with it in his hand and has a wicked right hook and Weevils in drag with names from the _Rocky Horror Picture Show _- who's to say what the future will bring?

Such thoughts strike Jack fleetingly sometimes, as Ianto holds him against another nightmare and soothes him back to sleep. Jack has learned to let them pass through his head and out the other side. It's easier to concentrate on the man who's lying beside him like this. It's become so familiar, this fitting together, this interlocking of limbs and troubles and emotions that no longer need naming. Jack knows Ianto will sling an arm around Jack's shoulders and stroke his bicep while the other hand will rest on his head, fingers absently combing through his hair. Jack will melt into the caresses, sliding an arm over Ianto's stomach and cupping his hipbone and hooking a knee over Ianto's thigh. He will press his lips against Ianto's slightly hairy chest beneath his collarbone, feeling its warmth and tasting the saltiness of his own sweat mingled with Ianto's essential flavor.

It's _all _of this - the elemental feel of Ianto, the murmurings that mean nothing at all and everything in the multiverse, the scents and tastes and the feeling of being wrapped in eternity frozen in a moment in time - that grounds Jack and makes it possible for him to keep going day after day. It allows him to fight with the often-insubordinate Gwen (whom he manages to adore anyway) and flirt with the disinterested Doctor (whom it annoys, and that's why Jack does it) and fuck with the joyful abandon of a teenager (which Jack hasn't been in a very, _very _long time). It lets him save the world and burn the toast and behave himself in the cinema even when he doesn't really want to and grieve Toshiko and Owen's untimely deaths. It gives him the wherewithal to awaken slowly and languidly after one of these nights and make love to Ianto like it was the beginning and the end and everything in between.

The last thing Jack remembers, usually, before he drifts off is Ianto's voice, soft and beguiling, whispering through his hair.

"Sleep now, Jack. I'll be here if you need me."


End file.
